The Cleveland Cavaliers will need to make a choice.
They have been riding the charmed life of a winning team on the rise over the past two seasons. In 2021-22 they doubled their win total, with Darius Garland coming into his own as an All-Star point guard and rookie Evan Mobley becoming a defensive difference-maker from day one. Jarrett Allen was an anchor in an All-Star season of his own.
Last season was another step forward, driven by the addition of All-NBA shooting guard Donovan Mitchell. The Cavaliers won 51 games and made the playoffs without LeBron James for the first time in 25 years. They may have been bounced violently out of the playoffs in five games, but no one expected them to win it all during their first trip.
The Cavaliers are facing pressure now
This season, however, is starting to bring the pressures of expectations. The Cavaliers have stumbled out of the gate, hit by injuries to each of their four stars at different points. Currently, Darius Garland is in the midst of a month-long absence for a broken jaw, while Evan Mobley will miss at least another month or more after knee surgery.
Those injury announcements, coming within minutes of one another in mid-December, were supposed to sink the Cavaliers. This team was already dealing with the weight of expectations that they take yet another step forward, winning a playoff series and becoming a serious contender in the East. Mobley was supposed to take a step forward, Max Strus was supposed to unlock their starting lineup, and this team was tasked with proving to the league and to Donovan Mitchell that they were a legitimate threat to win a title.
If they couldn't do that, the specter of Mitchell walking in free agency in 2025 would drive the Cavs to trade him this summer or risk losing him for nothing. That pressure was shunted to the present when Mobley and Garland were injured, and the discussion began shifting to where the Cavaliers would send Mitchell as this season fell apart.
Then the unlikely happened: the Cavaliers kept winning. They won without Garland and Mobley. They even won without Donovan Mitchell, going 3-1 when he missed an entire week with an illness. In total, the Cavaliers are 8-3 since that announcement; instead of spiraling into the lottery, the Cavaliers have rising into a three-way tie for fifth in the Eastern Conference, just a half-game behind the New York Knicks for fourth and homecourt advantage in the playoffs.
Although Mitchell has been incredible when he has played in that stretch, and bench production from the likes of Sam Merrill and Craig Porter Jr. has been invaluable, the most important player for the Cavaliers over the past few weeks has been none other than Jarrett Allen.
Jarrett Allen has been dominant
The seven-footer has been a two-way monster over those eleven games. He is averaging 19.4 points, 13.2 rebounds and four assists over that time. For one gloriously dominant week, he put up 73 points, 52 rebounds and 19 assists across three games, something only Hall of Famers have done before.
Allen has thrived with the improved spacing around him. Over those 11 games, the Cavs' most-used lineup features Dean Wade at the 4 and Max Strus at the 3; that group is shooting 40.2 percent from deep, and Allen is using the space inside to go to work. When Allen shares the court with Max Strus in that stretch (304 minutes) the Cavs are +43; when he shared it with Dean Wade, the Cavaliers are +45 in 223 minutes.
Playing a stretch-4 is working for the Cavaliers, and it is working for Jarrett Allen. The problem? Evan Mobley will be back sometime this season, and that spacing will disappear completely. For all that Mobley is one of the best defensive players in the league (he may be the very best) neither he nor Allen space the court at all. They have combined to go 2-for-11 from deep this year, and neither takes 2-point jumpers either.
The two players are an absolutely dominant defensive duo. When Allen and Mobley share the court the Cavs are among the best defensive teams in the league. On offense, however, the complete lack of spacing not only constricts one another's ability to score, it handicaps the entire offense. The Cavs are forced to maximize shooting at all costs at the other three positions, and it still doesn't help them generate consistent offense.
To this point, the hope has been that Evan Mobley would develop as a jump-shooter and eventually add that 3-point shot. Instead he has regressed, moving his offensive game even closer to the basket this season. That's not a knock on him; he has improved as a passer and rebounder, and if the shot hasn't come around yet in practice it makes sense not to force it in games. But it does mean that the dream of the two finding a way to excel together on offense is quickly turning to mist.
What, then, is the solution?
Which player do the Cavaliers trade?
Do the Cavaliers trade Jarrett Allen? That's been the backup plan for the past couple of seasons, the ripcord to pull when this pairing became truly untenable on offense. The lack of pressure before this season and the elite defensive impact kept the decision off the table, but this year may finally force the Cavaliers to make a decision.
Trading Allen makes some sense. There are teams out there that need a center, and Allen is an elite rim protector who has taken a step forward this season as a finisher and rebounder, not to mention as a passer. At the end of the day, however, teams are limited in how much they want to give up for a center, especially a non-shooter like Allen. The Cavs aren't going to get back a high-level prospect or two-way wing for a center, no matter how well he has been playing lately.
What if they trade Evan Mobley instead? It's an insane thought, not only because Mobley still boasts prodigious upside but because teams just don't trade away young budding stars. Early in the season he was a Defensive Player of the Year front-runner as a third-year player. His combination of defensive impact and versatility is truly special. He's hardly a slouch on offense, even if he isn't the floor-spacer the Cavaliers were hoping he would be.
Yet for all of those reasons, Mobley would command a King's Ransom on the trade market. He would get back more than Tyrese Haliburton did, or Kristaps Porzingis a few years before that. He would be a future All-Star and likely All-NBA player, with positional versatility to play the 4 or 5, and the sky as his limit as a player. Even if he never adds a reliable 3-point shot his interior skill, passing and rebounding would make him an incredible fit on many teams in the NBA.
What could the Cavaliers get back for Mobley? Are there teams willing to move off of All-Star players for him? Is there another high-end prospect at another position they could swap him for? What bounty of players and picks would a team give up for a player like Mobley?
The Cavaliers shouldn't panic and make a deal. Just because the Cavs have thrived without Mobley doesn't mean they are better without him. They were a Top-10 offense last season even with the two bigs. But if they want to reach their ceiling, at some point, this team has a choice to make.
Will they build around Jarrett Allen at center, or Evan Mobley? The decision once seemed obvious. It no longer is, and the Cavaliers would be smart to consider both paths before them.